QUINNAT SALMON.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 14 June 1926, Page 11

QUINNAT SALMON.

NEED FOR PROTECTION. , GREAT COMMERCIAL POSSIBILITIES. Mx. J. P. Babcock, chairman of the International Fisheries Commission, who recently spent six weeks- in New Zealand, on his arrival in Vancouver on his return was enthusiastic over the success of the efforts to acclimatise the quinnat and Atlantic , salmon in New Zealand waters, and at the same time sounded a note of warning against allowing undue haste to depreciate what ought to develop into a national, asset of the highest importance. . To a pressman Mr. Babcock said: “The future of the salmon fishery of New Zealand would seem to depend on administration. If handled conservatively the self-perpetuating runs of quinnat should steadily increase, and result in the final establishment of runs of great commercial importance. If the present runs are not conserved, if there is an overdrain, if they ‘cut their cake too soon,’ that consummation may not be reached. Their rate of increase has not been determined. The maximum of production of the New Zealand rivers cannot be determined in so short a time. The salmon are living in a new environment, subject to the attacks of a wholly new set of enemies. If these are more effective than tlie-ir old enemies in American waters- —and there is good reason to fear this may be the case —fewer will escape in each generation to form the spawning reserve, and the natural increase will be correspondingly diminished. “If I were asked to make the salmon fishing regulations in New Zealand —• and I have not been—the catching of the fish would be prohibited for a considerable period,” concluded Mr. Babcock. “Let time demonstrate the maximum of production tlieir great rivers are capable of. With adequate measures of protection runs of great commercial importance may he developed.”